SI and brand monitor shipment growth weaker than expected in April

TAIPEI, TAIWAN: Following the notable inventory replenishments during 1Q09, it started to cool down a bit during Apr09. By also taking into account the continued monitor panel price increases, these developments should help further shed light on the extent of downstream vendors’ overbooking and the actual market demand.

Amid a possible slowdown in the sales momentum and no evident rebound in the global economy, suppliers continue to hold a conservative attitude for fear of seeing their inventory running too high again, as witnessed during 2H08.

Thus, the monthly SI shipment growth momentum was not as strong in Apr09. Instead, most SIs saw a small decrease over Mar09. According to WitsView’s survey, in Apr09 the aggregated shipments by the Top 10 SIs reached 12.9 million, up slightly by 2.7% MoM.

According to WitsView’s top 10 monitor brand survey, given the slower inventory replenishments in Apr09, the stock of the downstream retailers and brand vendors returned to healthier levels.

However, as the end market sales were not too strong, the shipment growth of the top 10 monitor brand vendors was weaker than expected, where they reached 10.5 million, slightly down by 0.8 percent MoM.

An interesting aspect in Apr09 was the varying shipments of the vendors, due to the different quarterly end. For the Taiwan and Korean players, such as Acer, BenQ and LGE, the figures were lower over Mar09. By contrast, as Apr09 was the quarterly end for Lenovo, it sought to more aggressively push up shipments.